The Smart Approach to Energy Consumption

According to Google,
Smart Grid is defined as the “electricity supply network that uses digital
communications technology to optimize energy production, distribution,
consumption, and eventually storage in order to efficiently react to local
changes in usage”.

Terms like smart
meters, green networks, solar energy and wind energy pop up when “smart grid”
is mentioned. An interesting simplistic way to look at it, is the idea that anyone
can produce his/her own clean electricity and actually sell it. Optimizing and
controlling this flow is of paramount importance. However, this could not be
achieved without the use of Smart meters. In fact, Smart meters have a
monitoring role so that a prosumer (a consumer and/or producer of energy) can
easily understand how his lifestyle impacts his energy usage. Moreover, Smart
meters allow the prosumer to remotely control his energy production/consumption
units from his/her Smartphone. All the data collected by the Smart meters will
be automatically sent to some centralized devices for accounting and billing
purposes. These collected data will also be analyzed by energy suppliers in
order to extract information on when and how households are using the available
energy. The extracted information allows them to adapt their production units
and create more competitive time-of-use tariffs with cheaper prices for
off-peak use.

Dr. Elias Doumith, Associate
Professor at Université Antonine’s faculty of Engineering, elaborates on this subject.
The smart network is changing our lifestyle making us more aware and
responsible of our electricity consumption. Indeed, we are currently
experiencing a significant change in energy policy. Apart from shifting from a
centralized generation model to a distributed one driven by renewable energies,
the energy system is undergoing a long-term structural change. This change
materializes in the transition from an energy system driven by the demand to a
new one driven by the offer. In the past, consumers just require the energy
while the producers have to cope with the demand by adapting their power plants
generation. In an energy system driven by the offer, the consumers are provided
with incentives to reschedule some unnecessary power-greedy tasks for times when
electricity is available inexpensively. For example, turning on the hot water
or the washing machine at night, when the big industries are not feeding off
the grid,. This should replace overproduction and avoidable energy consumption
with energy-saving measures and increased efficiency. The smart grid makes us
all as one unit consuming energy in a sustainable, reliable and economic
manner. Prices are competitive which makes it tempting!

To compare it with
data consumption – vulgarly called the internet –, we have it on our phones all
day although we don’t use it all the time and not with the same speed; we can reduce
it at home when we are not there. Follow the user! The smart grid gives less
electricity when not needed. Note that, because our electrical home devices
will be connected to the grid, we can control them remotely, from outside.

The UN encourages
such development projects, in the aim of reducing nuclear energy consumption
and decreasing pollution levels. Many researches are being conducted in order
to increase energy efficiency, optimize available resources, balance offer and
demand, schedule demand-side management, monitor network consumption, etc… In Europe and the US, smart grids are being
installed.. In Lebanon, the
deployment of this system is still very limited considering it cannot take its
full role until electricity is provided 24/7. A few companies have shown an
interest in the control of home devices through the mobile phone option but
none towards reducing its power consumption while using intelligent automatic
control systems as a step towards a greener energy
sector. Whenever power will be available 24/7, the smart grid project can see
the light; the greed must stop so the grid gets smart.

As for Université Antonine, Dr. Doumith gladly
informed us that there are an undergoing collaborations with international
partners on novel techniques to optimize and increase the efficiency of the
Smart Grid network. Courses wise, engineering students specializing in
networking are being introduced to the optimization through the Université
Antonine Programming Competition. For more details on the UAPC, refer to
Unileb’s recent article on the subject.

It has become a
necessity, if not a duty, to rethink the way we consume electricity. By acting
more responsibly, we contribute in the fight against global warming but also,
the claim for lower energy consumption fees, considering it’s a need and a
right for each of us.